Did NewsDay fall for a photoshopped image? - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
November 4, 2019
Photoshopped…a manipulated image of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, which has done the rounds on social media.
On November 2, 2019, NewsDay published an editorial comment under the headline “ED has no capacity to steer this ship out of murky waters”.
In the editorial, the paper states: “Recent social media pictures of President Emmerson Mnangagwa helping himself to mazondo in an airjet and another of a sumptuous breakfast that the majority of Zimbabweans can only partake in in their dreams have become part of the enduring image of the leadership ineptitude and failure that he has become associated with.”
The paper added: “The fact that these images found their way onto the President’s social media pages at a time the country is facing a myriad of seemingly insurmountable problems depict a leader who either does not care about the situation on the ground or has no capacity to steer this ship out of the tumultuous waters.”
In fact, the image to which NewsDay refers, featuring Mnangagwa purportedly having a large breakfast, is a photoshopped picture that went viral on social media. The picture meshes together two images; a picture of Mnangagwa eating on the plane while returning from a trip to France, and another separate picture of a breakfast that trended widely on social media.
NewsDay is not the only news outlet to fall for the photoshopped “Mnangagwa breakfast”. On October 29, 2019, the website Spotlight also posted the altered picture under the headline “PICTURE: Mnangagwa’s gigantic breakfast”. The website later took down the post.
Developers such as Adobe have crafted guidelines on how to detect altered images.
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